This trip to Scandinavia wasn’t really a foodie trip for me. That had nothing to do with the cuisines of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, all wonderful and worth exploring, but more the economics of eating out repeatedly over a 14 day trip in some very expensive countries. In prioritizing what I wanted to try in Sweden, reindeer was at the top of my list. I managed two tastes on the same day. The first came at Skansen when I stepped up to order a #4:
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Gluten-free eating in Sweden
Before writing more about our time spent in Sweden, I feel compelled to write about the wonderful options for gluten-free eating in this great country. My fiancée was diagnosed with Celiac a number of years ago. On our travels in non-English speaking countries, this has made for a few difficulties while eating out. Sometimes we have to simply leave a restaurant, sometimes my love is on the receiving end of a dirty look or an uninspiring meal while I go to town on a delicious dish she can’t have. Not so in Sweden. At every eating establishment we visited, there was an immediate understanding of Celiac Disease and the requirement for strict gluten-free food. Everyone was good enough to warn us about possible cross-contamination if any items were fried in oil used for other non-gluten-free items. You come to expect that level of service at nicer restaurants, but on this trip, a true sense of the ease of gluten-free eating came from visits to a couple of fast food places and cafes.
Not the kind of place we’d normally visit while traveling, but when your partner hasn’t had a fast food hamburger in more than three years, McDonald’s becomes a bit of a novelty. So much of a novelty, that on our arrival we dropped our bags at the hotel and made a beeline to the first set of golden arches we saw. Here are the gluten-free versions of their double cheeseburger and Big Mac. Taste-wise, they’re authentic to the regular burgers. The buns are actually pretty good:
A picnic in Copenhagen
When we started planning our Scandinavian trip we knew we were going to be taking it easy on restaurants given the general expense of eating out in Copenhagen. Luckily, we had a pretty comprehensive grocery store close to the hotel and a wonderful organic bakery with a selection of gluten free items made fresh every day (Naturbageriet). We also came to discover the very new market-based food hall, Torvehallerne, that was immediately between our main train station and our hotel (how lucky!):
Toronto eating with Dad
Through a combination of my sister living there for close to 15 years, an extended work stint in 2007 and numerous business related travels to the city, Toronto doesn’t feel like a vacation destination – and that’s not a bad thing. With Dad and I both having some favourite haunts in the city, we hit a couple of them over our three day vacation.
Eating in Banff (aka: bison, bison, bison, elk)
I generally eat pretty well wherever I go on vacation. Some advance planning of the “can’t miss” places goes a long way toward making that happen. When I was doing my advance scouting for Banff, it became apparent early on that there wouldn’t be enough days in the itinerary to try all of the places that I wanted to. Here are the highlights of a week’s worth of delicious food and drink.
I violated a key travel rule – never return to the same restaurant twice on the same trip. I broke that rule because the food was so good on the first visit to the Bear Street Tavern and there was a menu full of things I wanted to try. On the first visit, they were running a Thursday night special on their bison short ribs. I saw this menu item arrive to a salivating customer at the table next to us as I was considering my order and it swung my decision. These were incredible – enormous, meaty and tender with crispy bits of BBQ sauce clinging to the edges. The beer off to the side is Tree Brewery Hop Head IPA from Kelowna, BC. Ignore the salad in the picture (I sure did):
Super Bowl snacks
I really love Super Bowl Sunday. As football fans and foodies, many regular season Sundays at our place probably look like Super Bowl feasts to some, so on this day, we try to do a few things to spoil ourselves. Here’s what we ended up pulling together….
Roasted mixed nuts (coated with orange juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, salt and rosemary and roasted at 350F for 20 minutes) for grazing/snacking throughout the day – recipe courtesy of Halifax’s Feisty Chef. Really loved these – the recipe is a keeper for next season:
Roasted garlic and bacon dip. Made a few small alterations to the recipe including almost doubling the roasted garlic and adding a bit more bacon than called for (and that’s never a bad thing). This turned out really well:
What’s a Super Bowl without wings? These ones are Buffalo style and are just 6 of the 1.2 billion wings consumed worldwide during Super Bowl Sunday. I think chickens really need a better lobbyist for their interests:
A Super Bowl tradition for us is Jodi’s hot nacho dip. We bring this out a few times during the season. It capped off a day of snacks really well:
With a day of foods on the spicy side, I went with a selection of lagers – Sam Adams (its touch of floral/spice went well with the roasted spiced nuts), Red Stripe (very crisp, perfect with the Buffalo wings) and Creemore Springs (a bit of malt and a clean finish to pair with the nacho dip):
Last Day in Seattle
December 3 – Given Seattle’s reputation for coffee, I scouted out Caffe Umbria with a location close to my hotel for a morning cappuccino and croissant. Easily the best coffee I had in Seattle. This is a delicious way to start a day:
I grabbed a bag of coffee beans to bring back to Halifax with me and started to make my way to the Experience Music Project (EMP) museum. For about the next half hour, I feel like I descended into a series of Simpsons episodes. First, to get to EMP I need to take a ride on a monorail (and as it banks into the final turn heading past the museum, I can almost hear Lyle Lanley himself running off with bags of money after skimping on safety standards):
Then I lay eyes on the EMP and its Frank Gehry design harkens me back to his design of Springfield’s concert hall / Montgomery Burns state prison:
Simpsons references aside, this part of Seattle feels like time passed it by a bit. Seattle Center and the Space Needle came into being for the 1962 World’s Fair. Maybe it’s the chilly, grey morning I’m here, but it feels like it has seen better days. That being said, the Space Needle itself is a pretty impressive architectural landmark:
Here, the Space Needle and its reflection in the side of the EMP:
The EMP is one of the most interesting museums I’ve been to in my travels. There’s a bunch of displays on music history, especially focused on key artists of the Pacific Northwest (Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana and the other “grunge” acts of the 90s). One of the things I really enjoyed was a display of electric guitars through the ages, including this 1952 Gibson Les Paul:
As a bit of a collector of concert set lists, I liked this one – the set list from the last Nirvana show ever (in Germany):
One of the best features of this museum were the interactive rooms where you could play instruments. Here’s a picture of one of the “pods” of instruments – guitar, bass and drums. After some interactive instruction on how to play the instrument, you could team up with others in the pod to play parts of a song. For the pod I tried, I got to play rhythm guitar for Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in concert with a bass player and a drummer who had just “learned” their instruments:
This impressive sculpture (“If VI was IX: Roots and Branches”) in the main hallway of the music-related displays let’s you hear the permutations of the sounds it can produce:
There were also great exhibits on the making of the movie “Avatar” and an installation on horror movies (with displays featuring costumes and props from the classics). The best part of the horror movie installation was that you could orchestrate the music and sounds in the room (I enjoyed a few minutes of adding screams and chainsaws to an orchestral piece which had a few folks looking at the displays wondering what was going on) Overall, it was a wonderful interactive museum and a great place to spend a few hours on a chilly overcast day.
The rest of my last vacation day in Seattle was about trying some drink and food. Making my may back to downtown Seattle, I stopped at Elysian Fields for lunch and tried their famously-entitled “Men’s Room Red” ale. Delicious:
On my way to supper, I make a quick stop in for happy hour at 106 Pine, a wine shop and tasting bar featuring a solid selection of Washington state wines. Here’s a Merlot that took some of the chill out of the evening:
From there, it was on to Andaluca for a Spanish-inspired small plates meal. First course: Broken Egg Papas Frites with chorizo and roasted mushrooms (and really, I could have just ordered this two more times and gone back to the hotel extremely happy):
Second course (complete with a warning that eating raw seafood may be a health hazard): Spicy Calamari bruschetta with saffron aioli – exceptionally fresh and very spicy/hot:
A very interesting Washington state Pinot Noir with strong hints of licorice. Unusual and interesting and quite nice for a cold night:
Last course: Paella with chicken, chorizo, grilled prawn, harissa butter and saffron:
Fully warmed up from the inside, I took in some of the Christmas lights in the shopping district of Seattle before heading back to the hotel. Among the pictures, the first and last ones below are of the Macy’s star and Christmas tree at Westlake Center:
Unfortunately, that marked the end of the vacation part of the trip. I did come away with some perspectives on Seattle in the course of just under 3 days:
1. Seattle is a very friendly city. People smile, engage in conversation and really seem to be down to earth folk. The west coast lifestyle is something I’m finding resonates with me.
2. The food culture in Seattle is something I could really get used to: Fresh seafood and variety like I haven’t seen in other coastal places including here in Halifax; Great local red wines; Enormous selection of microbrews across the spectrum of styles; A deep appreciation and care for the quality of food; It would be great to shop, cook and eat here.
3. In some respects, Seattle is like many other larger cities. But on its doorstep is immense natural beauty – lakes and rivers, mountains and pine trees. If/when I get back to this area, I’ll spend more time exploring what’s around this area. I could easily imagine this being a great place to live for a few years.
Friday in Philly
October 21 – The last conference day, and I’m up at a reasonable hour as my body clock has finally adjusted from the previous weeks traveling in Europe. Here’s the view from my hotel window of Philadelphia’s city hall and Liberty Place just as the sun is coming up:
The conference wraps up at mid day and my goal is to try cheesesteak #3 of the trip at Pat’s in South Philly. The plan was to catch a cab, but with a 5,000 delegate conference spilling out of hotels, no cabbie wants a city fare so I start out walking south. About 15 minutes later, out of the crush of hotels, I find a cab to take me the rest of the way. Here’s Pat’s:
It’s an odd mix of tourists who don’t understand the gruff protocol of this place and locals looking to pick up a quick bite on their lunch hour. I step up to the window, order my “wiz wit” and find a table:
It’s surprisingly good. I’d read/heard about how Pat’s, although the home of the original cheesesteak, just didn’t make good ones – but this is pretty tasty and well put together. I think I still prefer Jim’s, but I’m glad that I’m now basing that opinion on some scientific experimentation.
Walking around to the other side of Pat’s, here’s their competition – Geno’s (I wanted to try cheesesteak #4 there at lunch too, but a voice in my head, likely tied to the health of my heart, advised against it):
Hopped in a cab that magically appeared, and I get back to Center City to explore in the afternoon.
View north along Broad Street toward City Hall:
City Hall and One Liberty Place:
Love Park with the Museum of Art in the distance at the end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. On a previous trip to Philly, Jodi and I did a city tour and the guide, clearly infatuated with anything/everything French, kept referring to the Ben Franklin Parkway as Philly’s “Champs Elysees” – No knock against the BFP, but he’d clearly never been to Paris:
Liberty Bell:
The plan for my last evening in Philly (on a recommendation from a conference delegate and the fact that I’m currently infatuated with Spanish food and wine) was tapas at Amada, Jose Garces’ restaurant in the Old City neighbourhood:
The restaurant itself is beautiful inside and I’m lucky to have an attentive and knowledgeable server for the evening. As my first glass of wine hits the table, so too does a small serving of flat bread with a dip made from balsamic, tuna and a cream and cheese mixture that I’ve forgotten (on the left of the photo below). Sounds odd, but it was really lovely. Shortly after that arrives, my first dish of aged manchego with truffled lavender honey and green apple (on the right of the photo) enters the scene. It’s spectacular (great blend of creme, sweet, tart and herbal) and a great start to the evening.
Next up is my favourite dish from the evening – grilled Spanish octopus in olive oil, paprika and garlic, served with small slices of potatoes:
This next course was really interesting – fried peppers with Maldon Sea salt. A perfect mix of spice and salt cooled down by the foam made from La Peral (a blue cheese from the north of Spain) on the bottom of the dish:
Last up was some Chorizo Pamplona with cornichons, caper berries and mustard. All of the elements of the dish worked so well together. The chorizo was divine:
This was my one splurge meal in Philadelphia and I enjoyed it thoroughly. After a short walk back to the subway, I’m whisked back to the hotel. I’ve got a big day tomorrow before my later evening flight home…
Bluenose Traveler 